Affection: its causes & effects
Jun. 26th, 2009 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
come_to_thinkI listen to, and sing, a lot of traditional love songs, and it pisses me off that in them, by & large, the best a lover can say about cos (= his or her) beloved is that co satisfies some conventional and/or natural criteria of beauty: rosy cheeks, ruby lips, pearly teeth, etc. That seems to me the wrong way around. Naively, I would suppose that if you really love (or --- to confine myself to what I have experienced --- like) someone, the way to impress that on co is not to imply that co has won a beauty contest, but rather that because of your affection cos ordinary peculiarities have become charming. But that seems to be contrary to human nature. Back in the 1980s, while I was in a commune, I had a lady friend for a while (more precisely, I was fifth on her current list of lovers), and it annoyed her that I liked her snaggle teeth.
In the case of bears, at least, the tyranny of conventional beauty has loosened up a good deal. There are conventions, of course, but, being at odds with those of the larger society, they increase the amount of breathing room & perhaps inspire further rebellion. But even among bears, one reads, there are those who think the thing is a competitive game, in which (of course) they know the rules & are entitled to keep score. There is no end to the foolishness of this world.
In the case of bears, at least, the tyranny of conventional beauty has loosened up a good deal. There are conventions, of course, but, being at odds with those of the larger society, they increase the amount of breathing room & perhaps inspire further rebellion. But even among bears, one reads, there are those who think the thing is a competitive game, in which (of course) they know the rules & are entitled to keep score. There is no end to the foolishness of this world.
